About us

WAVE is dedicated to making the world safer by breaking damaging, intergenerational family cycles and helping people mitigate the effects of trauma within their communities.

Our story

Set up by business strategists, WAVE was created to pass on our learning about effective root causes solutions to policymakers, practitioners and third sector organisations who are working to reduce child abuse and neglect wherever it may occur.

We reasoned that the same basic approaches that could turn loss-making companies profitable could be applied to the social problems of violence and child maltreatment. After many years of research, we were able to connect the dots and form the necessary overview from which to create a truly preventive and solution-oriented approach.

With this knowledge behind us, we are contributing in many ways to the wider adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) movement, including by:

Continuing to update our global research

Advising local and national authorities

Educating and networking with politicians at all levels

Overseeing a grassroots network of ambassadors

Collaborating with community groups seeking to achieve change in their areas

We are determined to create a wave of action that will dramatically reduce the abuse and traumatisation of children, first across the UK and then worldwide. Our goal over the coming years is to drive and enable a year-on-year reduction in UK childhood abuse, neglect and living with domestic violence amounting to 70% by the year 2030. Please have a look - we call this the 70/30 Campaign.

Most read

WAVE Trust's Trauma-informed Communities (TiC) project will empower communities across the United Kingdom to build communities, strengthen local services and spread awareness about the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), resilience and how both affect all of our minds, bodies and life outcomes.

Written by Ita Walsh and published in June 2018 by WAVE Trust, 'Age 2 to 18 - systems to protect children from severe disadvantage' details how a national shift to a user-focused, trauma-informed care system characterised by ACE-awareness, followed by adoption of a pedagogical approach across all aspects of children and family services, would protect against severe, multiple disadvantage.